Wright Ex Rel. Wright v. Ford Motor Co.

Summary

The Fifth Circuit affirmed a take-nothing judgment for Ford Motor Company in a Texas products-liability wrongful-death action arising from a Ford Expedition backing over and killing a child. The court held that Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard No. 111 governed the alleged rear-visibility risk for purposes of the rebuttable presumption under Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code § 82.008, and found no reversible plain error in the jury instruction. It also affirmed summary judgment on the marketing-defect claim because the vehicle purchaser testified that he would not have heeded any warning or purchased the optional reverse-sensing system.

Holdings

1. FMVSS 111 governs the rear-blind-spot risk asserted by the plaintiffs, even though the alleged design defect involved the absence of a reverse-sensing system rather than the rearview mirrors themselves. Ford's compliance with FMVSS 111 therefore triggered the section 82.008 rebuttable presumption of no liability for the design defect.
2. The plaintiffs did not preserve their argument that the presumption should disappear from the case upon the introduction of rebutting evidence, and the instruction did not constitute plain error. It was not clear or obvious that section 82.008 creates a Thayer-type rather than a Morgan-type presumption, and the record independently supported the verdict.
3. Summary judgment for Ford on the marketing-defect claim was proper because the plaintiffs lacked evidence of causation: the Expedition's purchaser knew of the blind spot and the reverse-sensing option and testified that he would not have heeded any warning or purchased the option.
4. The district court did not abuse its discretion by excluding the plaintiffs' expert's 'sanity testing' evidence.
5. The district court did not abuse its discretion by allowing Ford's expert to compare the 2001 Expedition's rear blind spot with blind spots in other passenger vehicles, including vehicles manufactured in later years.

Questions Presented

1. Whether Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code section 82.008 permitted an instruction creating a rebuttable presumption of no design defect because the Expedition complied with Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard No. 111.
2. Whether the plaintiffs preserved their argument that evidence rebutting the federal safety standard's adequacy required the presumption to be omitted from the jury instructions.
3. Whether summary judgment was proper on the marketing-defect claim because the plaintiffs lacked evidence that an additional or different warning would have caused the purchaser to obtain the reverse-sensing option or avoid the injury.
4. Whether the district court abused its discretion by excluding testing conducted by the plaintiffs' expert's testing company.
5. Whether the district court abused its discretion by admitting testimony from Ford's expert comparing the Expedition's blind spot with those of other vehicles.

Disposition

affirmed